(20) Hey, what if we like stopped being creative?...hmm good idea, House Styles

 

Hey there friends...what? Your not my friend? That can be solved *gives you half eaten donut*, yeah we chill now. ANYWAYS, to all my dear readers, AHEM, yeah I mean you!! I wanted to discuss with you what is house styles with regards to magazines.

I care for you all and would hate to waste your time so I'm going to make this short and sweet and divide this topic into two separate blogs, I will use one blog for to help you understand the subject of house styles in magazines and another blog to demonstrate this in terms of actual magazines so you can see house styles in how it is applied in terms of an industry setting i.e. official magazines.

But before I begin let me give you a short list of useful resources to understand the concept of house styles before I simplify it to oblivion for you;

https://www.thoughtco.com/house-style-editing-1690842

https://www.theeword.co.uk/blog/creating-a-house-style-for-your-content-why-how/

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/house-style

Now that we have that out of the way let us begin,

So basically house styles is a-, hold up guys I just got word from our producer that someone has already done the work and we shouldn't waste our time, here you go guys ->

-boring synopsis (skip for the high tier synopsis)-

House style refers to the convention and style of the editor to maintain a constant theme throughout a magazine. Things such as font, abbreviations, format, color palette, and even grammar count in creating a house style. A proper usage of this element can help strengthen your brand and create an image for your company. In some cases, looking at a magazine can remind you of a specific brand. This is because of their usage of consistent house style. Throughout their magazine they use the same font, grammar, and format, which helps to create an organized plan for their idea. I believe that having a specific style for your magazine helps to give it its own identity. This is highly important when comparing magazines to one another. 

Each type of genre can have its own house style. For example, a magazine about celebrities would usually have a bold font style with a more informal type of grammar. On the other hand, an informative magazine about education will have more of a formal grammar with the times new roman font. The idea is to have the audience knowing which type of magazine this will be even without reading anything. This is what sets your brand apart from the others. 

The type of images you add in your magazine also affect the house style. For example, the genre of the "InStyle" magazine would be fashion or modeling. The reason behind this is the usage of models on the cover page. This portrays that the genre of the magazine is highly influenced but the type of house style used. Editors keep the audience and their age ranges in mind. If the magazine is catered towards a younger audience, the house style would be set up specific for teenagers, with bright colors and trendy aspects. For example, the magazine "Teen Vogue" is made specifically for teenagers aged between 13 through 19. The house style in this magazine is catered towards that age range creating styles which would amuse them.

Researching house styles has helped me to realize the impact they have on a magazines brand image. It's easy to say all magazines look the same, but after analyzing different magazines I have realized the differences that each one has. These differences are the reason the magazines are easily distinguishable. Creating a consistent look throughout your magazine helps to familiarize your audience with your brand. House styles are extremely important and help to give your brand an identity.

-credit: some nerd-

Well guys if you couldn't be bothered reading than don't worry I could barely be bothered, as such I'm gonna provide a synopsis of this synopsis, alrighty here we go again guys, ahem, and gals ->

Basically, house styles is a way for a magazine or rather any form of media to maintain a constant in many cases unique theme towards themselves. This is done to make it easier and more streamlined for workers and producers.

House styles is influenced by every part of a magazine or piece of media, by everything I MEAN EVERYTHING, such as fonts, colors, element sizing, and images. All these factors affect the house styles of a form of media, magazines included.

Welp that's basically it, get ready for the second part guys, I got some cool images to show you that will definitely cement this information in your non-wrinkly brains. Alrighty that's all b-bi-bi, you thought I was gonna say bi*** AHH old cartoon, funny, alright get out of here SCRAM!! haha

Thanks for Reading!! 

*Title Picture made using Canva

*Pictures generously sourced from free online materials (seriously)

*Boring synopsis borrowed from some nerd